I only ask because I already have one of them, and with the H80i installed in the back I won't have anything else to use it for.

personally i own and run a dark knight II, best cooler ive ever run, im running 1500 RPM cougar vortexes on it, its near silent besides moving air, and keeps my chip at 65C load at 5ghz in an M-ITX build.

If I get the Dark Knight, I'll also get two SP120's, so it'll be around the same price. I'll probably get SP120's for the H80i in the future.

Which of these coolers will be better in terms of temperature and noise? I'm willing to sacrifice a few degrees for lower noise levels.

I'm hoping to get a 4.4 to 4.6ghz OC, keeping temps under 70 during normal load (i.e. gaming).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spritanium

What about the noise?

From what I understand, water coolers are louder because of the pump noise in addition to the fans.

Corsair H80 easily.

Pump noise really shouldn't be anywhere near as loud as the fans unless something is wrong with the pump, which is not uncommon for Corsair AIOs. (They are usually really good about replacing faulty units.)

I saw some tests done a while ago that compared the Noctua NH-D14 with two fans to the Corsair H80 on an i7 3930k overclocked to 4GHz and there was around a 3Celcius temp difference at load. (Mind you the Noctua did a LOT better if it had 3 fans)

The DK has 3 dual heatpipes which is half of what the Noctua NH-D14 has, and the DK has about half the surface area.